Quote:Just as it opened America’s borders for illegal immigrants, the Biden-Harris administration opened its arms to 100,000 refugees in the last year—the most in 30 years. Immigration activists lauded the number but said the US hasn't done enough and can do better in the future. President Joe Biden agreed, The Washington Times reported.

Biden set a cap of up to 125,000 refugees for the fiscal year 2024/25, which started on Tues, Oct. 1. “Refugee resettlement exemplifies the generosity that has always been at the core of the American spirit and reflects the critical role of the United States as a global leader in providing refuge to people fleeing persecution overseas,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said.

Shortly after taking office in 2021, Biden issued an executive order stating that he was "revising the United States’ annual refugee admissions cap to 62,500 for this fiscal year. This erases the historically low number set by the previous administration of 15,000, which did not reflect America’s values as a nation that welcomes and supports refugees. The new admissions cap will also reinforce efforts that are already underway to expand the United States’ capacity to admit refugees, so that we can reach the goal of 125,000 refugee admissions that I intend to set for the coming fiscal year."

While Blinken is happy to welcome refugees, the Biden-Harris administration has been lax in sending criminal illegal immigrants back where they came from, with deportations down by 74 percent since Biden became president. DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas has even said that he opposes deportation as "bad policy."

This is the fourth time that Biden has set the refugee cap at 125,000. Former President Donald Trump has significantly lower expectations for accommodating refugees given the problems associated with verifying the status and adjudicating the claim.

Former President Barack Obama offered asylum to 85,000 refugees in 2016 while that dropped to fewer than 12,000 in 2020 under Trump. By 2023, that number was up to 60,000 and has now surpassed 100,000, with the final numbers expected to eclipse the previous year by 67 percent.

“Resettling nearly 100,000 refugees, a figure equivalent to the three previous fiscal years combined, represents a milestone achievement signaling renewed U.S. humanitarian leadership,” Krish O’Mara Vignarajah, president of Global Refugee, told The Times.

Most of the refugees in the current fiscal year came from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where 21 percent of the total originated. Afghanistan sent 15 percent, Syria 12 percent and Venezuela 11 percent.

Refugees represent a small proportion of those identified as new Americans. Throughout the 2024 presidential campaign, Trump has blamed the Biden-Harris administration for allowing an open border policy that facilitated the entry of tens of millions of illegal immigrants who have wandered across the border with impunity. Among this group, there are 13,000 convicted murderers and 435,000 with criminal records.